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Nominee! Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Script

Emily and Neal are doing fine as a new couple in New York until her brash and vulgar stepfather comes to town for a convention. Gene brings with him all of the contradictions Emily has been trying to bury. Incorporating theatrical techniques pioneered by Chicago's Second City comedy troupe, Bluff alternates between farce and drama to build a disturbing comedy about love and family on a collision course. This provocative play, a hit when Jon Cryer starred in it at the Tony Award winning Victory Gardens Theatre, was nominated for the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work.

"A new American play I simply cannot get out of my mind. Gene and his...view of frayed family ties haunt the memory. Bluff...leaves a very big impression. I want to see it again.''" - Chicago Tribune

The real hook is that the actors play with the audience members' heads, breaking the fourth wall at unexpected moments, and sometimes even breaking the fifth wall, speaking as themselves rather than their characters. It's actually quite funny. Mr. Sweet is...surprisingly successful at mixing comedy and drama." - The New York Times

"For a play with an essentially despairing view of love in an age of no-fault divorce and casual hook-ups, Bluff often has a teasing, frothy feel. That's partly due to Sweet's cunning ear for dialogue; he has a knack for burying stinging repartee under rambling tangents...The aforementioned theatrical shuffling burnishes the 80-minute play's glow of delight." - Newsday

Characters

CASTING

Jeffrey Sweet. Though produced on stages around the world, Jeffrey Sweet is most closely associated with Chicago theater. He has premiered plays at the Victory Gardens Theatre since the late seventies and is a member of its Playwrights Ensemble. Among his plays are Flyovers (Joseph Jefferson Award, best script), The Action Against Sol Schumann and American Enterprise (both American Theatre Critics ... view full profile